Press Print & Jewellery Comes Out: 3D Printing

FujiFilm will unveil a 3D printer that creates thermo-plastic items from a digital file.

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FujiFilm's 3D printer will be on display at The Digital Show

FujiFilm aims to make 3D printing available to retailers, allowing them to customise products, such as jewellery, toys and interior design products, and embark upon business opportunities.

FujiFilm's Account Manager, Michael Mostyn, said the technology will be available to retailers "in the near future" and consumer equivalents will also be of interest to "family and do-it-yourself enthusiasts" who want to "produce low cost, high quality finished parts for their projects at home."

"However, consumer printers would not have the capacity to produce all of the customised 3D products that would be available in-store through kiosks or online."

"The principle of 3D printing is similar to ink-jet printing which uses inks applied as droplets onto paper in thin layers in two dimensions (2D)," began Mostyn.

"The 3D Printerâ€¦deposits plastic layer by layer to form the object. Various plastics are used in place of different colour inks to produce the desired object.

"In a retail environment, a customer could use a kiosk to create their customised 3D product from a range of customisable designs or even a photograph, place their order with the retailer and then return to the store at a later time to pick up the product," concluded Mostyn.

3D printing has been around since the 80s and is also known as additive manufacturing. The process substitutes the skills required to shape a product with computer intelligence, and has been helmed as the "next best thing in manufacturing" by mechatronics Professor Olaf Diegal.